Your products are racking up five-star reviews on Amazon&period; Your services are bewitching Yelp&period; Street artists are appropriating your logo&period; Clearly&comma; the next thing on your to-do list is to scale as fast as possible&period; And then maybe buy a Caribbean island&comma; from where you can oversee your brand’s world domination&period;

But before you tap Richard Branson for his real estate agent’s number&comma; you may want to consider the other beloved brands -- from Firestone Tire & Rubber to Laura Ashley to Nokia -- that have stumbled over the years&period; These are all companies that&comma; in their haste to grow&comma; lost sight of why people liked them in the first place&period;

How can you avoid their fate&quest;

“It’s not just about growing your business&comma; but how you grow&comma;” says Seth Gaffney&comma; of Preacher&comma; a hip Austin&comma; Tex&period;-based creative company&period;

First off&comma; Gaffney says&comma; have a plan&period; Technology enables many startups to expand before they know who they are or what they are about&period; “Many firms are tech platforms with brands built around them&period; There’s no brand clarity or direction&period; Without those foundations&comma; a company can scale quickly but grow poorly&comma;” he says&period;

But even startups with good brand clarity can falter because they lose focus on intangibles like mission and message&period; These are increasingly important to consumers -- particularly younger ones&period; “&lsqb;They&rbrack; demand that brands have values and a purpose&comma;” says Gaffney&period; “And now it is easy to see if companies abandon these along the way to save a few bucks&period;”

What those values are&comma; exactly&comma; varies&period; Take those woolen Allbirds shoes so beloved by Silicon Valley types&period; It doesn’t matter if they quickly disintegrate&comma; as long as they are prized for their comfort and cachet rather than their durability&period; On the other hand&comma; if that supposedly rugged Yeti cooler falls apart when you hit a pothole&comma; the brand has real problems&period; “Consumers can be forgiving about products&comma; but less so if companies compromise on their mission statement&comma;” says Gaffney&period;

Another big challenge facing growing companies&colon; the temptation to do too much&period; Andrew Deitchman&comma; CEO of The New Stand -- a startup that aims to revolutionize the traditional subway newsstand -- says&colon; “As you grow and get more feedback&comma; it is incredibly tempting to try too hard to please too many people -- your investors&comma; partners and customers&period; This can end up being distracting for the business and confusing for your customers&period;”

Mike Karam&comma; head of strategy at ad agency Laird &plus; Partners -- whose clients include Tom Ford and Tiffany & Co&period; -- agrees that many companies can easily lose their sense of purpose after a while&period; “Look at all the artisanal coffeehouses that have sprung up to take advantage of some of Starbucks’ missteps&comma;” he says&period; “Here’s a brand that tried to do too much&period; Instead of smelling freshly roasted coffee when they entered&comma; customers would smell grilled cheese&period; Starbucks no longer felt like a coffee shop&period; It lost its way&period;”

Companies can also be too impatient to reach new customers and claim new business&comma; undermining their brands’ prestige by slashing prices or offering too many promotions&period; Savvy businesses&comma; Gaffney notes&comma; rarely discount products but instead have specific promotions to nurture new services&period; Take Crate and Barrel&comma; which adds value with its CrateDesignStudio&period; Or Everlane&comma; the radically transparent clothing company&comma; which doesn’t have sales at all&period; Instead it offers customers the opportunity to pay what they want on some items &lpar;setting a minimum&comma; of course&rpar;&period; Strategies like these lend an air of special access&comma; without screaming “bargain&period;”

“At the end of the day&comma; the brand is everything&comma;” says Karam&period; “Companies who know who they are&comma; and whose values are aligned with their customers’&comma; tend to make the right decisions intuitively when it comes to growing their businesses&period;

“Anyway&comma;” he adds&comma; “these days&comma; you may own the company&comma; but it is the consumer who really owns your brand&period;”